The Key To Answers
by Nnaemeka
Summary: In an alternate dimension, Will and Lyra never existed. In their place there was a tournament once in a while, using creatures. The prize:a key. Never before has there been one on this global scale. Let the battles begin. I need new animals and characters
1. Chapter 1

The men drilling didn't know what they were drilling for.

"Hey! I found something!" All the other drillers rushed over to see what it was.

"Woah! It's a chest." Indeed it was. It was nothing special, with a simple design and old worn lock.

"Well let's open it then." There was a shuffling of feet and mumbling. As they were about to decide what to do, a black limo rolled up to the site.

"It's the boss." The limo door opened and a smart suited woman came out. Everything about her was black: black suit, black glasses, black shoes, black hair. All black except for her skin, which was a very pale white. Silently, she walked over to the chest the builders had just dug up. She smiled and then there was a blur, as the chest burst open. There was a stillness for a second, then the chest exploded as a white light spread out everywhere.

* * *

"Finally, double maths is over!" Ayman stretched and yawned as he was going down the stairs, heading for the playground. He was quite tall (for a 14 year old), with a big build and hair in what can only be described as a mass of curls. Next to him James and Jack grinned in approval.

"Let's wait for the others by the regular." Jack said. Being the first people out of the class, Jack, James and Ayman hung around by the statue of cardinal Newman, waiting for the others to catch up. It was a sunny day and the sun was high in the sky in time for break. The rest of the class started spilling out and school was a buzz of activity as everyone headed to the playground. Then the wave struck.


	2. Chapter 2

"Are we blind?" Simon put out a hand tentatively, blinking rapidly.

"No you're not you idiot! Scrawk!" Something screeched. As he slowly regained his sight, Simon felt something digging into his shoulder. He put his hand there and could feel...feathers? The thing bit his finger.

"Ow!" Simon's head swivelled round to his shoulder and he glared at what had bit him. He found himself staring into the eyes of a parrot. It's eyes twinkled with mischeif and he swore it was smiling. Now there's nothing unusual about it except that there was a parrot on his shoulder whereas a minute ago there had been none there at all. And then Simon looked up, to realise he wasn't the only one who'd been affected. Sam.A had a mini king cobra leaning over him, and was looking bewildered, Charlie had a mini Polar bear, Sam.W a mini shark and Oliver a crow which was squaking annoyingly. What the heck is going on? he wondered.

* * *

Nnaemeka dashed into the playground. For some strange reason he felt there was going to be somthing happening there. After overcoming his initial shock of finding that a monkey was grinning at him from the top of his head, he realised that everyone else had an animal of some kind. At first everyone had found the animals a surprise, then had gotten over it and started playing with them. He sighed. It was going to be a long day. Now everyone was heading to the playground he went along as well hoping to see other animals as well. Turning the corner, he saw a massive train of coaches.

"What's that doing here?" he asked no one in particular.

"What? You mean you don't remember?" Someone replied. Nnaemeka shook his head.

"Well you know how the school had built that new block? Well it's there for..." The boy trailed off as the doors to the coaches opened. That was when Nnaemeka remebered. The LOS' sister school was merging with this one. Girls were joining the school.


	3. Chapter 3

The boys first reactions to seeing the girls was at first shyness. Then quickly it was overcome, as everyone remarked about each other's animals. Most girls had cats or birds, and it was a rarity for them to have something like a spider.

"Hey! You!" A girl shouted.

"Huh? Me?" Toby looked around thinking she was talking to someone else.

"Yeah you!" She was about his height (average), with light black hair, which was almost blue, and dark emerald green eyes.

"Were you looking at my chest?" she glared at him.

"NO WAY!" Toby protested, his chameleon turning red at his indignation.

"Don't lie!" The girl's sheep b'aad as well. Although Toby had to admit she did have quite a big chest.

"I'm not-!" Toby was cut off as she hit him. He was so stunned he didn't react to here next rain of blows.

"You are such a pervert!" She shouted, red in the face. The rest of the school had been mingling, but now everyone turned to look at this new interesting development.

* * *

"Karen is going to kill him." Nnaemeka turned around and noticed a girl next to him.

"Oh, hi! My name is Claire." She smiled at him. She was the same age with long blonde hair and blue eyes.

"Er...hi. Name's Nnaemeka," he mumbled," and Toby can win."

"You think so?" Claire said amusement in her eyes.

"I know so." He answered.


	4. Chapter 4

Toby knew he was going to lose. He had two options. He could either back out now and not lose any bones but have lost his dignity or get beaten the crap out of him and still lose his dignity. Basically it was a lose lose situation. He tried feinting and attacking, but Karen always saw through it and blocked. She suddenly darted forward and shot a punch at him. Toby raised his hands to block, but nothing made contact. He lowered them and suddenly realised he'd just been tricked as an uppercut sent him crashing to the ground. Dazed, Toby staggered back up. He saw Karen laughing at him and he suddenly became really angry. Not knowing what he was doing, he motioned to his chameleon. It jumped onto, no INTO, his back, a white shape. Toby felt tingly. It lasted for a second, then faded. There were gasps as something seemed to have happened. Glancing around, he noticed everyone's puzzled looks as if they were searching for something. Then he realised: _They were looking for him_. Toby raised his hands. It wasn't that he had disappeared. His skin had simply adjusted colour to blend in with the background. Somehow he had merged with his creature to become a chameleon.


	5. Chapter 5

Karen was confused. Had he disappeared? she wondered.

"Ow!" There was a pinch on her skin and a sharp pain. One, two, three, all from different directions. She heard a sound to her left and lashed out with her arm, but only hit air.

"Where are you, you perv!" She shouted. Another pinch.

"I'm not a perv! My name's Toby." Karen lashed out again hitting air again. Then it hit her. If Toby did that thing with his animal, then why can't she? Smiling she motioned to her sheep and, as with Toby, it went into her back, a white shape.

* * *

"So, two have released their first potential." The pale woman smiled. 

"I wonder who will win this time? Gonna have to break it to them soon." And then she jumped down.


	6. Chapter 6

The first thing Karen noticed about herself after the change was that she had horns. Curly horns. And also that she had a big fluffy sheep tail. Apart from that she was pretty much normal. Immediately, she noticed movement at the edge of her eyesight. So the change had made her eyes sharper! Cool! she thought. Acting on instinct she ducked down and sweeped her leg around in an arc. It connected and Toby reappeared, crashing once again onto the ground.

"Now I have you!" As he struggled to get up, Karen quickly advanced towards him. Sadly she didn't notice the stone in front of her. She slipped, her hair streaming behind her as she fell forward, down, down, right on top of Toby, lips locked. For a couple of minutes they lay there on top of each other, staring, faces red, blushing.

"Now, now, enough messing about children." The pale woman smiled.


	7. Chapter 7

"As if enough crazy stuff wasn't happening!" Dominic moaned.

"Shutup and listen!" Nnaemeka hissed," This could be important." After a quick introduction to Claire, the three turned back around to hear what the pale woman was saying.

* * *

"As you should all know by now, these are not normal creatures. And already two of you have tapped into your 1st potential." she said. 

"Would you get to the point!" someone shouted shouted.

"Ok fine. The rules are simple, this is a tornament. At the end of the tournament the winner gets this key." At this she lifted her hand to show a simple key with a faint glowing outline.

"To enter you must get to 1st potential by...say 2 days. You do not have to enter if you wish. As soon as you have tapped into 1st potential you will have a wristwatch materialise on your hand. These will tell you your opponents and so on. Rememeber if you enter, you do so at your own risk. You may not come out whole and in one piece, plus you may not back out once you have entered. I am now open for questions." she concluded. Stephen put his hand up.

"So what does the key do exactly?" he asked.

"Good question. The key opens the door of answers. Once you step through that door no one knows what it does to you. It varies from person to person. I mean the last winner was a man called Hitler and it drove him mad for power and greed. And before him had been Shakespeare, turning him into one of histories greatest writers. Also your wondering how come we haven't tried to open the door ourselves. Well that's because the lock and key change to the winner's preference. No one elese is able to open it." Alex put up his hand.

"Well how come we haven't heard of this before? I mean, it would be very hard to hide this kind of thing." The woman thought for a second.

"Hmm...that's because we haven't had to host it on this kind of global scale before." Whispers erupted.

"WHAT!? So you mean it's not just us, but the whole world?" Chima looked at her in disbelief.

"In essence...yes." The woman glanced at her watch.

"Sadly that's my time up, I must go and prepare with the others." The pale woman shot them a smile, waved, then in the blink of an eye, diappeared.


	8. Chapter 8

Over the next two days, everyone struggled to reach 1st potential. Of course not everyone reached it in time, but some of those who did were Sam.A, Sam.W, Simon, Nnaemeka, Karen, Toby, Alex, Claire, Dominic, Jack, Ayman, Shannon, April, May, Amy, Mary and many others. I could name them all but it'd take too long. Even some teachers entered such as Mr O'Dwyer, Mr Mantio and Miss Bickell.

* * *

"It is time." The cloaked figures stood in a huddle, the breeze ruffling the edges of their dark attire. 

"Are the watchers ready? Good, then let the games begin." And they all flew off in seperate directions.


	9. Chapter 9

"You must now split into teams of three." The pale woman had come back.

"Your team leader must put your team name and members onto this sheet. Once everyone has checked in, the tournament will begin immediately." Slowly, steadily, teams were decided. Sam.A, Sam.W and Simon formed Triple S. Joe, James and Jane formed the J Experience. Jack, Michael and Billy became BJM Egos. Chima, Lawrence and Tom.S formed the Cool Crew. Many others followed but it would take too long to name them all.

"All done? Then let the first round begin." The woman clicked her finger and they all teleported in a flash.


	10. Chapter 10

"Where the hell are we?" Jack was mildly surprised. They were in a clearing surrounded by trees.

"In a forest of course. This is the elimination rounds. You have to last two days here. If you are killed or badly injured, you will be removed from the game by our watchers. On my mark you go. 3...2...1...GO!" The woman pressed her stopwatch as everyone ran deep into the forest.

* * *

"The first thing we need to do is to secure a good location." Alex said. Natalie and Sophie nodded in agreement. 

"We should probably stay in first potential just in case of an ambush as well." He added. Once that was done, the three cats increased their pace as they raced through the forest.


	11. Chapter 11

Of course not everybody had thought of this. So when Triple S were ambushed, they had been caught completely unawares. They had set off in a southern direction and had enetered a jungle zone.

"And they call this a forest." Then the other team attacked, bursting out from a particularly large bush. The first one to react was Simon, who had instinctively entered first and was now airborne, his multicoloured winds sending him higher. Looking down, he could see Sam.A quickly constricting his opponent, his limbs entwined round his victim's body, preparing to inject his paralysis poison. The boy struggled, lashing his stingers at him (he was a jellyfish), but to no avail. Sam's skin was simply too thick. Sam pulled his head back, fangs bared, then brought them down on the boys shoulder. He thrashed wildy for a second, then slumped, still. Meanwhile Sam.W was busy dodging a girl's sharp claws. As a cheetah, she would normally have been moving much faster and finished Sam off by now, but due to the enclosed space, she couldn't move as fast. Sam stuck out his leg and the girl tripped. Capatalising on this Sam (W) kicked her straight into a tree. She fell to the floor, unconscious. 2 down. So then where was the third member? Suddenly something smashed onto Simon's back, sending him hurtling to the ground. He turned his head around and saw a hippo-boy hanging onto his wings. They crashed through the trees and, just as they were about to smash into the ground, Simon twisted and threw the boy off, using momentum. The boy didn't stand a chance. He never got up again.

"Well that was easy." Sam.W said brightly.


	12. Chapter 12

BJM Egos were lost. They knew they were lost because they had just passed the same place for the 5th time in a row.

"We're lost Jack." Billy said. They had been walking for hours.

"How are we gonna get out of this mess?" Michael moaned. They trudged on for a few more minutes.

"I have an idea." Jack said. He quickly entered 1st with his fox. Then he stood stock still for a second, ears pricked. Suddenly he moved, Michael and Billy hurrying to keep up. Jack started to slow down, the sound of a river nearby.

"Ssshh!" Jack put his finger to his lips, motioning for them to come forward quietly on their hands and knees. There was a bush in their way and they cleared a hole through which they could see. Looking through they could see the river. But it was not all they could see. On one side of the river was team whizz, made up of Charlie, Oliver and Stephen. On the other side was team madness, comprised of Josh.D, Tom.Syzcho and Sebastien.

"Looks like they're about to fight it out." whispered Billy, his Koala busy munching some leaves.

"Should we help them?" Michael asked, scratching his raccoon.

"We'll help team Whizz when they need it. For now we'll just watch and wait." Jack replied.

"But why? Why not help team madness?" Michael asked, confused.

"Because...because team madness are the top ranked team so far with over 200 eliminations." Michael turned to stare at Jack.

"How did you know that?" he quizzed.

"The wristwatch. It has news on it and everything. Go to menu." Billy pushed some buttons.

"Wow, it even has a games menu. Hey! Look. We're ranked 10th out of 36500 competitors. Oh, but only because we have 0 eliminations like everyone else."

"Sssh! They're about to start!" Jack hissed.


End file.
